Bentuk Agama dan Agenda Agama - Dari Niche SYARAK IKIM

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Balancing Religion's Form And Objective

Ditulis oleh Dr. Mohd Farid Mohd Shahran. Posted in The Star

Religion has played and is still playing a great role in refining good characters of mankind, inculcating good virtues and building great civilizations. It is like a fire that enlightens people’s heart and leads human being to a good path in this world and in the world to come. But just like fire, religion could also become dangerous when it is under the hands of incompetent people.

That is the reason why matters concerning interreligious engagement have become one of the greatest concern especially in a multi-religious society such as Malaysia. The ultimate aim at this level is the peaceful co-existence amongst various religious adherents.

But just as it is pertinent to look at the level of interreligious relation, the equally important dimension are the issues that take place at the level of intra-religion which involves the interaction between people within the same religion.

As a matter of fact, what happens at this level is more crucial since the problems that take place here, if not properly dealt and administered,  might further divide the society which is already divided due to interreligious issues.

Furthermore, the attitude of religious adherents among different mazhabs and sects at this level tend to be more aggressive because the criteria used to judge others are sometimes more strict and disagreements are irreconcilable due to personal and sectarian ego.  

This is more apparent due to the emergence of sects which are strongly puritan in nature yet having lesser wisdom and tend to reduce religion to a very strict version of rules and regulation. Sometimes, they tend to be more aggressive against their fellow religious followers compared to the people of other religion.

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The main question is how to strike a balance between understanding religion as a whole and to prevent extreme interpretation of religious sources? It definitely needs a great level of wisdom and patience especially in analysing the teaching of religion from a wider perspective and in a more just way. In this regard, a few dimensions of the balance view ought to be taken into consideration.

The first dimension is the balance between the objectives of religion and the details of religion. The confusion between the two would cause people to become extreme in religion in the sense that they emphasize strongly on the details of religion without really knowing the reason why such details are being regulated in the first place. As a result, the excessive preoccupation to the details will depart someone from the objective of the religion as a whole.   


One relevant example is the preoccupation on the form and the colour of Islamic clothing to the extent of forgetting that the higher objective of this clothing which is to cover the ‘aurah and to worship Allah.
The second example is the preoccupation on the reading and memorization of the Qur’an while neglecting the understanding of the meaning and the implementation of its teaching in life which are more essential as far as the Qur’an is concerned.
In relation to this, there is a wide discussion on the objective of religion  (Maqasid Shar’iyyah) in Islam. Although the discipline itself is relatively new, the spirit of the discussion of Maqasid Shar’iyyah was found in the writings of the classical scholars of Principles of Islamic jurisprudence such as al-Ghazali, al-Shatibi and others.


In this discipline, it is explained that religion is not a mere ruling without any wisdom and reason. It is sometimes called the attempt to inquire the divine intent and the moral concepts upon which the Islamic law is based. According to Jasser Audah, one of the contemporary Muslim experts on Maqasid Shariah, the discussion in this field represents the link between Islamic law and today’s notion of human right, development and civility.


In the discussion of this field, the objective of religion ultimately is reduced to the most generic aim namely to ensure the wellbeing of man as a whole. And to achieve this, five important aspects in man have to be protected; his religion, life, intellect, progeny and wealth.
All these five aspects were abstracted from various verses of the Qur’an and the teachings of the Prophets. They represent the core elements that constitute a proper Muslim especially in relation to God. Therefore, any detail of religion must be analysed based on these five basic grounds and should not go against these five principles.


To have a proper balance between details and the objectives of religion is of course not easy. For it requires a great deal of knowledge and wisdom especially in looking at the seemingly contradictory aspect between the five elements.

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Another form of balance which is related to the first one is the balance between the essentials and the peripheries of religion. In Islam, the essential of religion basically related to the belief system, the aqidah which is also the reason why it is also called the Principles of Religion (Usuluddin). They serve as the framework and anchor of the whole religion of Islam. It is therefore very pertinent in strengthening the religiosity of someone and any deviation from the principles of aqidah is detrimental to whole religion and would be considered the greatest sin.  This is in comparison with the practical aspect of religion which is considered as the branches of religion (furu’uddin) the deviation of which would not be detrimental to the religion as long as the aqidah is still sound.
The imbalance will take place when matters of the branches are considered as principles and the disagreement within the branches is seen as against the principle of aqidah. Following that those who are against their position will be considered unbelievers and out of the limit of religion.
In sum, it is interesting to see that within a religion there are many things that we share and agree compared to matters that we disagree. Furthermore, human being is by nature inclined to come to an agreement rather than disagreement. It is therefore important to focus on matters that we agree and to have an open mind towards matters of disagreement.

sumber  asal :
http://www.ikim.gov.my/index.php/ms/the-star/9491-balancing-religion-s-form-and-objective

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